Charges were dismissed in NIU rape case despite signed admission from former campus cop

The former DeKalb County state's attorney dropped charges against a Northern Illinois University police officer accused of rape despite having a signed statement from the cop saying he continued to have sex with a student after she told him to stop, the Tribune has learned.

The case, which prosecutors said they dismissed due to shoddy police work,has shaken the NIU police department and led campus officials to take steps to fire its well-known police chief, Donald Grady, and a high-ranking investigatorin the department.

But the revelation about the statement from the accused officer, Andrew Rifkin, raises new questions about where the case broke down — at the police level or in the former state's attorney's office.

The new state's attorney, Richard Schmack, declined to comment, saying in a statement that he does not comment on "pending cases or active investigations."

He could present evidence — including the statement that Rifkin's attorney said he signed without reading and contains inaccurate information — to a grand jury as early as next month, at which time the panel could consider whether there is probable cause to renew charges.

F. William Nicklas, NIU's acting director of public safety, said university officials met with the state's attorney's office about the Rifkin case and others soon after Schmack took office in December.

"It is their prerogative to reopen it," Nicklas said. "We just stand ready to cooperate in whatever way is professionally appropriate."

The case against Rifkin was dismissed under unusual circumstances late last year amid accusations that NIU investigators intentionally withheld evidence that could have helped the defendant. The police department had taken two statements from women who knew Rifkin and the female student, and who said the sex had been consensual. Their statements, however, were never turned over to attorneys.

Rifkin, for his part, signed a statement to police that says he and the student had consensual sex that turned into nonconsensual anal sex.

Other details of the case remain shrouded in secrecy in the weeks since prosecutors first dropped the case in late November. There is no trace of the case in the DeKalb County clerk's database, even though Rifkin had not formally requested that it be expunged. NIU administrators also have denied a Tribune request for police records relating to the case, saying they were doing so in part at the request of local prosecutors.

The newspaper has appealed the university's decision to the Illinois attorney general's office.

Rifkin, now 25, was a new NIU police officer in fall 2011 when he developed a relationship with a freshman student. On Oct. 28, 2011, that student told police that Rifkin had sexually assaulted her. He was fired from his job and charged in November 2011 with felony sexual assault.

According to a statement Rifkin signed on Oct. 31, 2011, he picked up the student outside a fraternity house Oct. 14 and drove her to his home in a nearby town. The statement indicates they had consensual intercourse and he then tried to initiate anal sex.

According to the typed statement, he said the student said, "Stop, stop it hurts." The statement then says that the student "stated words similar to this approximately 4-5 times."

He said he continued "for approximately less than a minute after she informed me she" wanted him to stop, the statement reads. It later says: "I sincerely apologize to (her) for my actions that night."

The statement, examined by the Tribune, is initialed twice by Rifkin and signed by him.

Rifkin's attorney acknowledges that his client signed the statement, but he says the statement is inconsistent with the information Rifkin provided during a portion of the interrogation captured on an audio recording. In the recording, the officer does not admit to any wrongdoing or suggest he ignored the student's request to stop, defense attorney Bruce Brandwein said.

After the audio recording was turned off, Rifkin continued to speak to an investigator, while another detective typed up a statement on a laptop, Brandwein said. Rifkin read the statement on the detective's computer, but he did not review it again before he signed it, Brandwein said. Rifkin now tells his attorney that the statement he signed is dramatically different from the version he originally was shown.

"It's not reflective of what he said on the audio recording," Brandwein said. "It's not reflective of what he saw on the computer screen either."

Brandwein acknowledges it's difficult to understand why his client — a sworn police officer who knows such statements are almost always used against suspects during criminal proceedings — would sign a statement without reading it first.

"You bet he should have," Brandwein said. "But he was 23 years old and had only been an officer for a few (weeks). We're not talking about a street-wise kid or a veteran police officer."